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NYC05LA119 · Pratt Ultravia Pelican-PL

12 Jul 2005 · Middlebury, VT, United States

Pratt Ultravia Pelican-PL · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb

From Middlebury State Airport (6B0) to Middlebury State Airport (6B0)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC05LA119
Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Completed
API-reported fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
General aviation
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Visual Meteorological Cond

Pratt Ultravia Pelican-PL

Category
Airplane
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N412JP
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Middlebury State Airport (6B0), Middlebury, VTTo Middlebury State Airport (6B0)
Aircraft age
Not recorded
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Part 91: General Aviation
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
Initial climb
First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Loss of engine power
Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
Tree(s)
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

About five months prior to the accident, the pilot installed a new engine in the homebuilt airplane. The engine was a 138-horsepower conversion of a Subaru automobile engine, and had accumulated about 13 hours of operation until the time of the accident. On the day of the accident, no anomalies were noted during the preflight inspection, start-up, or taxi. The engine normally operated about 5,700 rpm, with the propeller turning about 2,500 rpm. During the takeoff roll, the propeller rpm was at 2,000, and the pilot adjusted propeller pitch to increase the rpm to 2,500. Shortly after takeoff, the airplane experienced a partial loss of engine power, and the rpm dropped to approximately 1,500. There was not enough power remaining to return to the airport, so the pilot performed a forced landing, straight ahead, into trees. Examination of the engine, fuel system, ignition system, and propeller system did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions.

Probable cause

A partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC05LA119
Event ID
20050714X01023
Case number
NYC05LA119
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
  • Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 3373e7ba5695f11175f0c94cb50c2df7949cd38eb376a09f5c4dd995c94e0ac0; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:39:41.005Z.